High School Back to School Night

Tonight Mat and I attended the back to school night at Arlington's school.  Arlington has chosen to go to high school (college is what they call it here) at the Academia Bilingual School and is loving it.  This school mostly prepares them for the IGCSE (British) school system, which is equivalent to the US system, so it works out.  They can also prepare the kids for the Swiss Matura (there are a lot of Swiss students that attend this school so they can get the English needed for college) but it is much, much harder, and you really need to be Swiss for this to make sense.

We learned a lot about how the next 4 years will proceed and how she will be prepared to go on to college whether it is in the US or is in Europe.  She will be prepared for both.  IT was a really interesting night.  The first hour they talked about the school, activities, and clubs.  They told us about the fantastic trip they are taking the kids on in February to Yorkshire England. (Mat and I wish we could go - it sounds amazing)  They are going to get to see the REAL Harry Potter train.  Jealous!

We learned what University cost in a lot of places in Europe.  For Switzerland - it is FREE.  You read that right Americans - FREE COLLEGE.  And you don't have to be Swiss for it to be free.  But Swiss college is ridiculously hard to get into.

It was a good presentation and we learned a lot about the way the program will work for our eldest daughter over the next 4 years and how that would transfer to the American Colleges or if she decided to go to a European University.  Lots to think about for us and for her.